Microliteraturehttp://www.microliterature.org
Journal of MicroliteratureSun, 25 Sep 2016 05:56:06 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Microliteraturehttps://feedburner.google.comIf There Were Water by Ken Headhttp://www.microliterature.org/if-there-were-water-by-ken-head
http://www.microliterature.org/if-there-were-water-by-ken-head#respondSun, 25 Sep 2016 05:56:06 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1144Dirty and battered, a white van bumps and grinds along the track. Its driver, probably on his way home from a few beers in the village and a trip to the local builder’s yard, veers first one way then the other to avoid the deepest ruts. At this hour on a sweltering afternoon, when even the birds and lizards are taking it easy, the only other movement is a tepid breeze, the only other sound, cicadas shrieking. Amid so much space, what’s near seems distant, at a remove. Across the plain, every field is sun-scorched. Almond, carob, olive, blackened trunks […]

]]>Dirty and battered, a white van bumps and grinds along the track. Its driver, probably on his way home from a few beers in the village and a trip to the local builder’s yard, veers first one way then the other to avoid the deepest ruts. At this hour on a sweltering afternoon, when even the birds and lizards are taking it easy, the only other movement is a tepid breeze, the only other sound, cicadas shrieking.

Amid so much space, what’s near seems distant, at a remove. Across the plain, every field is sun-scorched. Almond, carob, olive, blackened trunks adrift thigh-deep in brittle grass and thistle, blur into one another. Ramshackle farmhouses, some home to families whose dogs aren’t there to welcome strangers, others crumbling ruins abandoned when their wells ran dry and left for wide-eyed owls to colonize or feral cats, seem indistinct, no more than out-of-focus smudges shimmering in the haze. Almost a mirage.

Yet, barely an hour’s drive away, if you have fuel to spare, along the unfinished motorway, past the air terminal, two or three monster construction sites abandoned by smart developers and the skeletons of unfinished apartment buildings nobody’s going to buy, the city persists, a tourist’s dream of gambling, international hookers, air-con bars and sun-tanned bodies baking under parasols, a higgledy-piggledy urban sprawl where businesses will stay to make a buck so long as the music plays and visitors with nothing else to do lie about watching vapour trails dissolve slowly into light. An oasis in the desert, you might think.

But here, in this eviscerated place, where parching heat and drought mock honest labour, as they’ve done since carthorse lives trudged slow behind a plough and silent, stubborn men climbed hillsides every day to work their rock-hard terraces, the penny still hasn’t dropped, so tankers deliver precious drinking water, trucks come and go with bits of kit for getting things in shape and on energetic days the noise of power tools rips peace and quiet to shreds. And why not? the stubborn locals ask, why ever not?

In a cloud of dust, the van turns between sections of cinder-block wall and stops on the overgrown driveway of a house with its windows boarded up. Dogs yap way off. From the back of the van, the driver, a fat man with a beard, unloads coils of hosepipe, a pump, a portable generator, a couple of sizable cardboard boxes. Piece by piece, he lugs it all inside the house past a woman watching, stone-faced, in the doorway.

Spiky cactus, yellow flowers, brilliant, regardless.

Ken Head lives in Cambridge, England where, until retirement, he taught Philosophy and English Literature. His work has appeared widely both online and in print, most recently in Prospero’s Bowl, a collection of his poetry published in 2013 by Oversteps Books (www.overstepsbooks.com).

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/if-there-were-water-by-ken-head/feed0Betty’s Personaal Anonymous On-line Helpline by Paul Beckmanhttp://www.microliterature.org/bettys-personaal-anonymous-on-line-helpline-by-paul-beckman
http://www.microliterature.org/bettys-personaal-anonymous-on-line-helpline-by-paul-beckman#respondSun, 07 Aug 2016 05:03:11 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1154Betty: Our next person with an issue is ready and wants to be known as Anonymous. What’s your issue, Anonymous? Anonymous: She’s got an attitude and I’ve finally had enough. I’m so annoyed I won’t even speak her name and I told her so and she came right back with a snide remark. Betty: What did she say that was snide? A: She said, well. I wouldn’t want my clean name in your dirty mouth. B: You have to admit that was a good one. A: A couple of days earlier I asked her—As long as you’re up will you […]

]]>Betty: Our next person with an issue is ready and wants to be known as Anonymous. What’s your issue, Anonymous?

Anonymous: She’s got an attitude and I’ve finally had enough. I’m so annoyed I won’t even speak her name and I told her so and she came right back with a snide remark.

Betty: What did she say that was snide?

A: She said, well. I wouldn’t want my clean name in your dirty mouth.

B: You have to admit that was a good one.

A: A couple of days earlier I asked her—As long as you’re up will you please bring me a glass of water? Are your legs broken? Get up and get it yourself, she said.

B: Do you think she had a point?

A: How is this remark justified? She claims that I’m the one with the attitude and I’ve got to learn a lesson or life is going to be difficult. This is difficult. Living with her comebacks and putdowns is difficult.

Last night I asked her—What are we having for dinner? Stay where you are—I’ll bring you a menu as soon as I finish printing it up, she says.

Why couldn’t she just answer a simple question?

B: Have you thought of a trial separation? Maybe you two need to be apart for a bit to appreciate each other.

A: How does a thirteen year old boy go about getting a trial separation from his mother?

Paul Beckman’s stories are widely published in print and online in the following magazines amongst others: Connecticut Review, Raleigh Review, Litro, Playboy, Pank, Blue Fifth Review, Flash Frontier, Metazen, Boston Literary Magazine, Thrice Fiction and Literary Orphans. His work has been included in a number of anthologies and published in a dozen countries. Paul earned his MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. His latest collection of flash stories, “Peek”, published by Big Table Publishing weighed in at 65 stories and 120 pages. His website is www.paulbeckmanstories.com

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/bettys-personaal-anonymous-on-line-helpline-by-paul-beckman/feed0Turning Away From Longing by Ken Headhttp://www.microliterature.org/turning-away-from-longing-by-ken-head
http://www.microliterature.org/turning-away-from-longing-by-ken-head#respondSun, 17 Jul 2016 05:50:47 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1138If he’d crossed at his usual place, he’d have avoided her, but he didn’t, so he has to ignore her and keep walking. Talking will be fatal. Once she gets going, she’ll never stop. As it is, she starts by asking him if he’s interested in building a peaceful world, then doesn’t wait for his answer before she takes a pamphlet out of her shopping-bag and offers it to him, as if what it says is so obviously important he’s bound to want to read it. This isn’t his problem, though. What bothers him as he does his best to […]

]]>If he’d crossed at his usual place, he’d have avoided her, but he didn’t, so he has to ignore her and keep walking. Talking will be fatal. Once she gets going, she’ll never stop. As it is, she starts by asking him if he’s interested in building a peaceful world, then doesn’t wait for his answer before she takes a pamphlet out of her shopping-bag and offers it to him, as if what it says is so obviously important he’s bound to want to read it. This isn’t his problem, though. What bothers him as he does his best to look away, pretend he’s checking his email, texting more chit-chat into the Great Elsewhere, is that her eyes tell him she’s seen God.

The knowledge makes him feel feeble, thin, like someone going down with a virus. He can’t remember how many years ago it was he finally voted against faith, but having done it, he knows he won’t change his mind. Not ever. So going belly-up because he’s run into some holy josephine touting for converts will shame him if he lets it happen. Given half a chance, she’ll chisel away at him right there on the street till he surrenders the life he’s built for himself hook line and sinker just to get out of her clutches and he isn’t about to let her get away with that. He knows where he stands. He’s learned it the hard way, doesn’t need a heaven to navigate towards.

God, we say, knowledge, almost meaning, but not quite. No words for what’s lost.

Ken Head lives in Cambridge, England where, until retirement, he taught Philosophy and English Literature. His work has appeared widely both online and in print, most recently in Prospero’s Bowl, a collection of his poetry published in 2013 by Oversteps Books (www.overstepsbooks.com).

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/turning-away-from-longing-by-ken-head/feed0Party Island by Jason Walkerhttp://www.microliterature.org/party-island-by-jason-walker
http://www.microliterature.org/party-island-by-jason-walker#respondSun, 03 Jul 2016 05:32:12 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1148We said, “Let’s.” And we did. Then the beats slowed down, the clubs dulled. Half of us flew home with large bruises. The police arrested four others. The rest toured the lesser known side of the island, where we visited a nudist zoo. A few of us stayed there because it had “more beer and more titties.” The bus dropped the rest of us off at a beach reserved for the locals. They spit on us whenever the authorities weren’t looking and said, “Tourists, we hate you.” The most depressed member in the group wanted to stay, so we left […]

]]>We said, “Let’s.” And we did. Then the beats slowed down, the clubs dulled. Half of us flew home with large bruises. The police arrested four others. The rest toured the lesser known side of the island, where we visited a nudist zoo. A few of us stayed there because it had “more beer and more titties.” The bus dropped the rest of us off at a beach reserved for the locals. They spit on us whenever the authorities weren’t looking and said, “Tourists, we hate you.” The most depressed member in the group wanted to stay, so we left him there. We swam away from the shore toward another island, much smaller than the one we had partied on. One of us drowned. The rest of us made it to the smaller island—which we named the same name as the previous island—and celebrated our survival.

Jason Gordy Walker teaches composition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His short-short stories have appeared online in Monkeybicycle, Oblong Magazine, Nap, The Café Irreal, and others. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Measure, Think Journal, The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/party-island-by-jason-walker/feed0The King and Five Cans of Beans by Andrew Stancekhttp://www.microliterature.org/king-five-cans-beans-andrew-stancek
http://www.microliterature.org/king-five-cans-beans-andrew-stancek#commentsSun, 12 Jun 2016 05:44:33 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1158I don’t see why I had to be the one. The whole town’s in our store for the Big Sale and I’m stacking cans of beans. I don’t see him until he’s up close, the white suit, the grin and cow lick. He speaks in the Hound Dog voice, with that accent. Just from the air around him, I know. The real thing. “Can you give me ‘bout five of them cans, Jim? Real good price you got on ‘em,” he grins and I stare, all shook up. “I know, Jim, I know. I’m in the grave. But in the […]

The whole town’s in our store for the Big Sale and I’m stacking cans of beans. I don’t see him until he’s up close, the white suit, the grin and cow lick. He speaks in the Hound Dog voice, with that accent. Just from the air around him, I know. The real thing.

“Can you give me ‘bout five of them cans, Jim? Real good price you got on ‘em,” he grins and I stare, all shook up.

“I know, Jim, I know. I’m in the grave. But in the evenings I miss burgers and fries and at night the girls and a good tune. So I go for a walk now and then, for a sizzle with a hot tamale. When you’re the King, you get perks.” The store rings with that voice, but they’re all deaf, filling carts with canned pineapple and applesauce. “The beans, please, Jim?” he says.

No one will believe for a minute, and I don’t want to be the kook who’ll next see green Martians. I put TV dinners in the freezer, help pack; I’m fine with that. But I saw him, handed him five cans. Leaving the store he drops something, and I think good luck charm, but a kid kicks it and it rolls and is gone. I could look in the garage for my old Gibson and amp but what’s the use? I’ll just go back to the beans.

Andrew Stancek entertains Muses in southwestern Ontario. His work has appeared in Tin House online, Every Day Fiction, fwriction, Vestal Press, Pure Slush, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Camroc Press Review, among others. He’s been a winner in the Flash Fiction Chronicles and Gemini Fiction Magazine contests and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/king-five-cans-beans-andrew-stancek/feed2The Good Deacon by Jeff Ferryhttp://www.microliterature.org/good-deacon-jeff-ferry
http://www.microliterature.org/good-deacon-jeff-ferry#respondSun, 05 Jun 2016 05:47:55 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1152Deacon Gordon Lavoy walked into the Shore City Market with long, purposeful strides and grabbed a basket. There was a nearly palpable crackle of energy as every eye in the market followed the Deacon’s movements. The residents of Shore City just couldn’t see enough of their handsome and charming new clergyman. He didn’t need much in the way of food, but after the night he’d had, he could certainly use the pleasant atmosphere. He walked into the fresh fruit area and perused several oranges, pretending to ignore the giggling and whispering women. His relaxed demeanor, handsome features, and ready smile […]

]]>Deacon Gordon Lavoy walked into the Shore City Market with long, purposeful strides and grabbed a basket. There was a nearly palpable crackle of energy as every eye in the market followed the Deacon’s movements. The residents of Shore City just couldn’t see enough of their handsome and charming new clergyman. He didn’t need much in the way of food, but after the night he’d had, he could certainly use the pleasant atmosphere.

He walked into the fresh fruit area and perused several oranges, pretending to ignore the giggling and whispering women. His relaxed demeanor, handsome features, and ready smile meant no female in the town skipped his weekly sermon. He smiled and saw one particular young lady smile sheepishly in return.

Feeling more like the Gordon Lavoy who had taken this town by storm this summer he made his way to the frozen foods section hoping to find his favorite brand of ice cream. He would find it of course. The middle aged divorcee who ran this store would make sure it was stocked for him.

He grabbed the pint of Black Walnut and wiped away a bit of frost. He was about to close the door when he felt a tug on his sleeve, he turned and his smile, so recently found, was instantly lost. Looking first left and right, he angrily spat, “I told you to never speak to me again!”

She blinked, her long lashes brushing her cheeks, and said, “But, I need to talk to you.” Leaning closer, she paused, and lowered her voice. “You see, I’m…”

Gordon dropped his basket and tossed his ice cream into the freezer. He grabbed her arm firmly and pulled her close to him and walked her into the employee’s entrance to the freezer. He did so with his most winning smile. The one he reserved for the most faithful servants of the lord. Several of the shoppers noted not only his smile, but his close quarters with this woman. Smiles which had been sweet became decidedly sour.

“Deacon Lavoy, what-” she began.

“Don’t talk. Just don’t talk.” He said. He ran his hands through his hair. She opened her mouth one time to talk, but he put his hand up and she closed her mouth slowly.

Things had been going so well until now. Gordon had this town eating out of the palm of his hand. Cash was flowing into the church so fast he couldn’t keep count. Not that he was keeping accurate records on anything as trivial as cash. The problem was he needed several more months of cash before he left this backwater beach town behind him and the only way that was going to work was to keep the local women on the hook. As long as the possibility of winning the heart of the “sweet Deacon Lavoy” existed he could drain these lonely women of quite a bit of cash. It was a perfect plan.

Until last night, when he’d broken the cardinal rule. He’d bedded one of the lonely women. Once word got out that he was laying down with the parishioners things were bound to unravel. He could kiss the money good bye, and possibly his freedom if anyone bothered to look into his background.

He finally looked back at the young woman. She was certainly not a desperate middle aged woman and he could hardly blame himself for his indiscretion; or indiscretions if he was being honest with himself. She was just out of college with a perfect body and intensely blue eyes. She was wearing glasses today which she hadn’t been last night, but he had to admit it just made her that much sexier.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I had no right. I was just upset about last night.”

She tried to speak again, but Gordon again shushed her. He moved her close to him and held their bodies together. She gasped a bit and tried to pull back, but relented to his strong grasp. The remembered feel of her body pressed against his caused his breath to shorten and he looked into her eyes.

“I won’t say it was a mistake.” He said. “We made love last night. It was everything a man could want. Pleasure. Passion. Pain. But it can’t happen again.”

This time when she opened her mouth to speak his kissed her slowly and deeply. Gordon was reliving the passionate lovemaking of the night before and was grasping at her body when he realized she wasn’t kissing back. At least not with much passion. He must have done something wrong.

“Jessica, what is it?” He asked, hoping to salvage the situation.

“Well, the thing is Deacon Lavoy,” she said. “My name is Jamie. Jessica is my twin sister. She was very upset this morning and wouldn’t tell me why so I thought I’d talk to her Deacon about it.”

Gordon took an involuntary step back. Jamie adjusted her glasses and fixed her top where Gordon had nearly managed to pull it down. “I’ve never been much of a churchgoer myself.”

Jamie smiled at him. It was a smile she reserved only for the worst people she encountered. Gordon turned as she walked out the door into the market. As the door swung open he saw several faces staring back at him. They wore no smiles at all.

Jeff Ferry was born and raised in New Jersey. In 2014 he published a novel, The Dawn of Mars. He also had a recent short story, The Book of Shadows, published on Printers Row of the Chicago Tribune. He is a Mailman and member of the United States Military.

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/good-deacon-jeff-ferry/feed0Baby, Baby, Baby by Paul Beckmanhttp://www.microliterature.org/baby-baby-baby-by-paul-beckman
http://www.microliterature.org/baby-baby-baby-by-paul-beckman#commentsSun, 29 May 2016 05:41:11 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1150“Can’t you shut the baby up?” “Baby is our daughter and maybe if you held or rocked her or even sang to her she’d stop crying.” “Why don’t you do it?” “I do it all the time. Can’t you see I’m using the breast pump now and can’t hold Baby?” “I don’t know if I can take this forever.” “What’s forever? She’s only six months old!” “By now you should have developed a routine where she is quiet when I get home from work.” “She’s not a puppy.” “Well, maybe we ought to trade her in and get a puppy. […]

“Baby is our daughter and maybe if you held or rocked her or even sang to her she’d stop crying.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“I do it all the time. Can’t you see I’m using the breast pump now and can’t hold Baby?”

“I don’t know if I can take this forever.”

“What’s forever? She’s only six months old!”

“By now you should have developed a routine where she is quiet when I get home from work.”

“She’s not a puppy.”

“Well, maybe we ought to trade her in and get a puppy. I’m going to go down to the shelter and see what they have available.”

“And what about our daughter? We haven’t even named her yet.”

“You seemed to have named her Baby and keep saying there’s no rush, naming her will be easy when her personality comes out. Now her new parents can give her a name just like we’ll give the pound dog a new name.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No joke. Baby wakes me two or three times a night and I have to wake you to take care of her and then she cries when I get home from work. Everything’s about Baby. With a dog we can put her in a crate and go about our business.”

“So we either get rid of Baby and get a puppy or you’re going to split?”

“Blame yourself. You gave birth to a screamer, not me.”

“Listen to me. Pick up Baby. Tell her you love her and sound like you mean it. Tonight after we put her to bed we’ll try to decide on a name and talk about getting a puppy when she starts to walk.”

“I want to start with the puppy, name it, soundproof Baby’s room and give her a name when she’s earned one by being a sweet little girl.”

“I’m not going to marry you and I no longer want to live with you. Go be fucking crazy on your own. I want you out this week and you can find yourself a puppy and an apartment in any order you want.”

“I suppose you’re going to want me to support you two.”

“No, Eva and I will do just fine on our own.”

“What’s this Eva all of a sudden?”

“That’s the name I’ve decided to give my daughter.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of Martha or Helen.”

Paul Beckman’s stories are widely published in print and online in the following magazines amongst others: Connecticut Review, Raleigh Review, Litro, Playboy, Pank, Blue Fifth Review, Flash Frontier, Metazen, Boston Literary Magazine, Thrice Fiction and Literary Orphans. His work has been in a number of anthologies and a dozen countries. His latest collection, “Peek”, published by Big Table Publishing weighed in at 65 stories and 120 pages. His website: www.paulbeckmanstories.com

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/baby-baby-baby-by-paul-beckman/feed1Ascension by Robert Fisherhttp://www.microliterature.org/ascension-by-robert-fisher
http://www.microliterature.org/ascension-by-robert-fisher#respondSun, 22 May 2016 05:02:43 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1146Six weeks into a brutal ten-week winter tour of the Midwest, he checks into the Fargo Travel Lodge. The roads are beginning to ice up. He took the bus from Madison, timing his arrival so he could grab a pre-show nap. He takes the nap, wakes up an hour later and checks the paper. His set at the Giggle Hut or Chuckle Coop—whatever it’s called—is at eight-thirty. Just enough time to shower, early dinner and maybe catch a movie. Problem is, the movie theater’s a mile away and he’s on foot. The only movie playing that he hasn’t seen is […]

]]>Six weeks into a brutal ten-week winter tour of the Midwest, he checks into the Fargo Travel Lodge. The roads are beginning to ice up. He took the bus from Madison, timing his arrival so he could grab a pre-show nap. He takes the nap, wakes up an hour later and checks the paper. His set at the Giggle Hut or Chuckle Coop—whatever it’s called—is at eight-thirty. Just enough time to shower, early dinner and maybe catch a movie.

Problem is, the movie theater’s a mile away and he’s on foot. The only movie playing that he hasn’t seen is Schindler’s List. There’s heavy buzz about ‘List. He needs to see it, work a few references into his act. The only thing he knows about the movie is that it’s set in World War II. There ya go—a war picture: guys in foxholes, bang-bang, bomb-bomb—joke heaven.

He grabs a burger. The comely waitress at Bennigan’s across the road will not be joining him back at the Travel Lodge for a pre-show quickie. He sets out for the mall on foot. It is twenty-one degrees outside. This morning’s now-frozen rain coats everything like Varathane. Cars drift across medians and collide with oncoming trucks. By the time he gets to the mall, the temperature reads eighteen degrees.

Two hundred minutes later, he steps out into an eleven degree night, numb with depression.

He only has only minutes to get to the club. His heart feels frozen and dead, head full of concentration camp horror. Ice skates would not be out of place here. The north wind begins to pick up. The mercury soon hovers just above zero. He tiptoes down the side of the road as if barefoot. His halting gait on the treacherous ice reminds him of the unforgettable little girl in the movie: a lone blot of doomed color.

He takes the stage ten minutes late, still in threadbare jacket. His shriveled gonads click like a pair of chilled ben-wah balls. Despite the weather, there is, astonishingly, almost a full house. His body core temp warms into mere hypothermia. He begins to shiver like a junkie forty-eight hours into withdrawal. But the only synapses revived are those serving sensations of pain. His brain has not yet defrosted. He mangles every joke in his repertoire. Then he tries to riff on the movie he’s just endured. When they start to boo, he makes the mistake of turning on the audience. He directs improvised barbs at them. But they are hardy native North Dakotans fortified with liquor. They answer his insults by hurling bottles, glasses and chairs at the stage.

Bang-bang, Bomb-bomb.

He hobbles back to the Travel Lodge. It is now nine degrees below zero. He crawls into bed.
He wakes the next morning with pneumonia and moderate to severe frostbite. He spends a week in the hospital. The outside temperature never rises above zero. He bails on his remaining bookings and returns to Los Angeles a broken man, heavily in debt.

After a year of working at Thrifty as a stock clerk, he is fired. An old lady asks if the tube of Vagisil she is holding “works.” He replies: “It keeps my cooter pretty crunchy!”—which doesn’t even make sense, but has the percussive C-words of a good punchline.

Four months later, his meager unemployment about to run out, he gets a call from a friend of a friend about a possible gig at a nationally-syndicated radio network. It’s a job writing and performing comedy. Getting paid for what he loves to do and what he’s good at. Lunch with the head writer is arranged.

He does not dazzle at the lunch meeting. Some common ground is established: they’re both from the Irish-Catholic School of Comedy as opposed to the Borscht-Belt School. But he needs this job too much. He tries too hard.

Bomb-bomb.

They finish eating. Head writer picks up the check. They walk back to the network building in silence. Head writer readies his “don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you” farewell.

The elevator door opens.

Head writer boards the elevator, about to deliver the kiss-off.

Our guy stands there, ready.

Head writer holds the door for a second. Our guy stares at the floor.

The head writer hesitates just long enough for our guy to notice the brand name of the elevator—SCHINDLER.

“Hey,” our guy says. “Schindler’s LIFT.”

Head writer looks down, shakes his head.

He beckons.

Our hero climbs aboard and ascends.

Robert Morgan Fisher’s fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review Soundbooth Podcast, The Huffington Post, Psychopomp, The Spry Literary Journal and many other publications. He has a story in the forthcoming Night Shade/Skyhorse Books Iraq War anthology, Deserts of Fire. Robert holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, where teaches for Antioch’s online I2P Program. (www.robertmorganfisher.com)

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/ascension-by-robert-fisher/feed0Black Swan by Ken Headhttp://www.microliterature.org/black-swan-ken-head
http://www.microliterature.org/black-swan-ken-head#respondSun, 15 May 2016 05:48:06 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1136Gare d’Austerlitz. Monday morning, eight o’clock. The overnight from Barcelona pulls in on time. He stares out of the compartment window as if he needs to memorize the scene. It’s raining hard and the station looks as grim as the Paris weather. Only the self-important pigeons flapping and strutting about don’t seem much bothered. Commuters waiting for a local to work, though, who see this every day, gaze blank-faced from the crush on the other side of the barriers as the carriages start to empty and people wheeling suitcases, hefting backpacks, checking their ’phones and the whereabouts of children, crowd […]

He stares out of the compartment window as if he needs to memorize the scene. It’s raining hard and the station looks as grim as the Paris weather. Only the self-important pigeons flapping and strutting about don’t seem much bothered. Commuters waiting for a local to work, though, who see this every day, gaze blank-faced from the crush on the other side of the barriers as the carriages start to empty and people wheeling suitcases, hefting backpacks, checking their ’phones and the whereabouts of children, crowd onto the long platform. It isn’t leisurely, but they’re anonymous individuals again now, not names on the train manager’s list and after twelve hours cooped up together they’re impatient to be away, to the Métro or a taxi, back to the comfortable bustle of their separate lives, minds busy with schedules, already looking forward to what they plan to do next.

Tomorrow beckons, he thinks, watching the blurred, preoccupied faces. Foolish to be so sure, though. The thought produces the flicker of a smile which he displaces, calming himself by checking his watch, letting his eyes settle on the locked suitcase at his side. In the predictions game, you don’t always win. It’s inevitable. In a heartbeat, he’ll have left the train, made himself invisible among the flow of people on the concourse, just another stranger wearing crumpled clothes and lugging a heavy case, a nobody who won’t rate a second glance.

Ken Head lives in Cambridge, England where, until retirement, he taught Philosophy and English Literature. His work has appeared widely both online and in print, most recently in Prospero’s Bowl, a collection of his poetry published in 2013 by Oversteps Books (www.overstepsbooks.com).

]]>http://www.microliterature.org/black-swan-ken-head/feed0Landmark by Chad Greenehttp://www.microliterature.org/landmark-by-chad-greene
http://www.microliterature.org/landmark-by-chad-greene#respondSun, 08 May 2016 05:42:03 +0000http://www.microliterature.org/?p=1134We’re having a hard time understanding each other. The two walkie-talkies we purchased at Radio Shack, so we could communicate between our separate cars in remote areas without cell coverage during our cross-country move, crackle with static. “What?” Annie asks inside her car, packed with all her possessions – including the wobbly wooden chair with the worn orange cushion she hadn’t been able to bring herself to donate to Goodwill earlier this morning. “Do you need to stop for gas?” I repeat, then consult the handwritten list of walkie-talkie terminology taped to my dashboard. I had taped a matching one […]

]]>We’re having a hard time understanding each other. The two walkie-talkies we purchased at Radio Shack, so we could communicate between our separate cars in remote areas without cell coverage during our cross-country move, crackle with static.

“What?” Annie asks inside her car, packed with all her possessions – including the wobbly wooden chair with the worn orange cushion she hadn’t been able to bring herself to donate to Goodwill earlier this morning.

“Do you need to stop for gas?” I repeat, then consult the handwritten list of walkie-talkie terminology taped to my dashboard. I had taped a matching one to her dash. “Do you copy?”

“Copy that,” she replies. Chuckling, she takes a moment to consult the list. “Umm … negatory on that.”

“Do you need to stop for a bathroom break?”

“Negatory. Do you need to stop?”

“Affirmative.”

“For gas?”

“Negatory.”

“For a bathroom break? Already? Are you, like, a little kid? We pull away from the curb, and you immediately need to—”

I cut her off. “Negatory.”

“For what, then, Charlie?”

“For this?” Annie asks as she climbs out of her car in Downtown St. Paul. Above us stands the pyramidal red-tiled roof of the pink granite Romanesque Revival clock tower of Landmark Center. “You are like a little kid.”

“This won’t take long,” I promise as I open one of the cardboard boxes – labeled with the word “t-shirts,” written in black permanent marker – in my trunk. The black zigzag on the chest of the yellow shirt I retrieve from it looks similarly hand-drawn.

“Good grief!” she exclaims at the sight of the shirt.

“That’s supposed to be my line. After all, I’m—”

“A blockhead?” she suggests. “What else did you pack in that box? A kite for that tree to eat? A football for me to pull away at the last second?”

“Is that what you think I think? That, by asking me to move to California with you, you cost me the chance to actually kick in a college game?”

“Is that what you think? Because I didn’t think that – until now.”

Suddenly desperate to look anywhere but her eyes, I pretend to study the shirt in my hands. The zigzag, I suppose, wasn’t meant to symbolize anything in particular – just a simple pattern that was easy to draw over and over in thousands and thousands of comic strips. At this moment, though, it seems to symbolize the constant ups and downs of a relationship – of a life spent together. Or apart.

This down? I doubt it’ll take us too low. Just to the base of such a steep up – if only we can end this detour and get back to our trip.

“Look,” I say, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to communicate in some sort of passive-aggressive secret code by bringing us here.”

“So, you didn’t pack a football?”

“No,” I assure her, “just a camera. I just thought … Charles Schulz was a little like me: a German-American – a Charles who was the son of a Carl – who was born in Minnesota, but then moved to California. I just thought … there’s this statue of Charlie Brown and Snoopy in St. Paul, near the start of our journey, and there’s another one of the two of them in Santa Rosa, near the end of it. I just thought … take one picture here, take one there.”

“That’s so sweet. You are like a little kid – one who hasn’t taken geography yet.”

“Geography?”

“I’m pretty sure Santa Rosa and Long Beach are on opposite ends of California.”

“We’ll talk about it during the drive.” She shakes her head, then pulls her walkie-talkie out of her hip pocket. “Do you copy?”

“Copy that.”

“All right. Let’s take this picture, then start this trip.”

“Let’s,” I agree.

Hand-in-hand, we walk toward the bronze statue sitting in the shade of a tree there in Landmark Park. As far as I can see, there are no kites stuck in the tree.

A graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, Chad Greene is an assistant professor of English at Cerritos College. Whenever he isn’t planning lessons or grading papers, he is attempting to put together a novel-in-stories tentatively titled Trips and Falls.